Finally it rains!

Saturday July 24/Sunday July 25   Garden Gates Open

It has been extremely dry for three weeks and we are on Garden Gates Open.  This is a self-guided tour  and this season had about 60 gardens on view in London and surrounding areas.  Our garden was listed as having bee hives to make sure that anyone who was scared would be aware.  Our garden is watered only with rainwater and by the time the tour came along, we had only a bit of water in two of our six rain barrels and the rest were completely empty.  I refuse to use city water on flowers but I was so close to breaking that rule.  Even my day lilies, usually so tough, had dried out buds and crispy leaves. So many of the rest of the perennials were drooping badly.  We showed the gardens regardless and discovered that many people came specifically to see the hives.

One man came who was a bee keeper himself.  He started with one hive  as a hobby with his brother and three years later they have 16 hives.  This is not an unusual story and I could feel Bill rolling his eyes at hearing this one.  A lovely couple came to see them after having seen a documentary about the loss of bee colonies.  They gave me their heartfelt thanks for keeping them and hopes for the survival of the hives over the winter.  It was heart warming and made me feel determined to keep them alive.

That night the skies opened up and it rained!  So much rain fell that our street flooded and looked like a river.  Gorgeous...though it was a hard rain, not the soft kind that is so lovely for farmers and gardeners alike.  I didn't complain though since all of our rain barrels were filled to the brim that night.  The next day, the garden was lush for the tour and even glistened a bit. A couple brought their young grandson to see the bees and found it difficult to tear him away from them.  So many visitors were aware of the crisis that is facing bees and were so interested in the few stories that I could tell them...and I am such a newcomer to this world!  Here are some pictures from the day of the tour.

View from our deck

Blue jay waiting his turn at the peanuts

Grackle at the bird bath

Hosta garden at front of property

Wed July 27  Excluding the Queen

Surprise, surprise, it's hot and sunny and I'm out working the bees!  It was time to add a queen excluder to each of the hives.  The queen excluder is a plastic screen that has holes big enough for the workers and the drones to get through but too small for the queen.  The reason we add this excluder is to keep the queen from laying eggs in the frames that we want the honey to be stored in.  I held off adding the excluders until the end of July but now we are getting serious about honey production.

Queen Elizabeth I had a little bit less honey in the top super but was still ready to have a new empty super added for honey production.  I went into every super to make sure that her Majesty wasn't hanging out and when I was sure, I added the excluder between the second and third boxes and left her to her laying.  You may remember that I added newspaper between the split colony and the donor colony.  Lots of the newspaper was taken away, but look where the rest of it ended up...on the bottom of the hive in a soft fuzzy layer.

Bottom trays--right one covered in chewed up newspaper.
Left one from under Hippolyta.

I then put Elizabeth back together, adding a super so the workers can continue drawing out comb and filling them with nectar.  Then on to Hippolyta.  She is remarkable for honey production.  The top super is almost full with 8 capped frames full of honey.  I put in a queen excluder and then added a super.  We are definitely ready to extract some honey so that will have to be our next adventure.  Here are the proud hives...high five (sorry)!

Five high hives